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and frequently furnish as clear an appreciation of an official's qualities as can be found in the columns of Western newspapers. The genuine feeling that often pervades these documents and the unquestionably sympathetic relations that plainly exist between many local officials and the people within their jurisdiction, have a value not to be ignored. It is probably true that the average Western critic has neither means nor dis- position to see anything beyond the salient blemishes of an Eastern system, and that even features which the customs of his own country should have made familiar are distorted by prejudice when observed in an alien land. Thus the Chinese Emperor's habit of making public confession of his own faults and attributing to them the responsibility for some natural calamity, such as drought, inundation, or pestilence, has often been ridiculed by European writers and called a flagrant example of Oriental insincerity. They forget that in thus acting the sovereign merely humbles himself before heaven, precisely after the manner prescribed by Christianity. So, too, when officials accuse themselves of offences and ask for punishment, as not infrequently happens, the foreign comment is that these confessions are merely intended to divert attention from really serious misdeeds. Yet the Chinese offer an altogether rational and credible explanation, namely, that apart from the hypothesis of sincere regret, there may be a less noble, but still not